Parallel: An Anthology
Chapter 1 : Hunger.
“Who am I?”
That is the question that had plagued me the moment I was gained consciousness. A moment I still remember to this very day and that will forever be ingrained into my mind.
But I can still remember; memories from before I ever questioned my own existence. It is slightly blurred, but I can still recall.
I recall…hunger. Yes, hunger. That was the only thing in my mind. The desire of satisfy the sensation of hunger was the sole thought of my previous existence. Followed by the desire of rest. Two of the most basic necessities that living things require, from the biggest of beasts to the smallest of creatures.
And that was it. That was the whole extent of my existence before thought; a being of consumption and self-indulgence on the most basic of levels. I was no different than any other thoughtless beast.
I would’ve stayed the same, a mindless beast, if it weren’t for her.
Even before thought, my earliest memory is of her. Lying down, with her eyes closed, resting.
Questions like, who she was and what she wanted from me were simply impossibilities for me. But even with my instinct level of reasoning, I knew she was something important. I felt a deep connection towards her. A connection that even today I can’t begin to comprehend.
I remember that she did something; not only to me but also all my brethren who were exactly like me, mindless beings, driven by instinct and not thought. What she did exactly I don’t know. All I remember is that it was her, the one responsible, the one who changed us that day.
That day, was like many that came before. My brethren and I were together, enjoying the feeling of consumption; the feeling that slowly we were satisfying our most prominent desire. There were happy times, or the closest thing my instinct-driven mind could comprehend as happy.
Then it happened.
A strange but warm feeling surrounded and passed through me at the same time if it was a sea wave. This strange surge not only enveloped us, it changed us to the very core.
Now, everything that my brethren and I enjoyed as food source no longer seemed appetizing. It no longer had the same inviting allure as before. I didn’t understand it back then but it was not our food that changed, it was us that did.
We had no longer food, but our desire for satisfy our hunger was still there, screaming at us to continue path of consumption. We grew desperate and in our desperation we did the unthinkable. We turned at each other and began consuming our brethren.
The first to go were the weak and slow ones. Those who were tired and near their limit of consumption, ready to go back to sleep were devoured by those who were the most hungry and desperate. They didn’t see it coming.
After that massacre the fight was far from over.
Those of us who survived, we continued fighting and consuming each other, ignoring that we were leading ourselves to our own extinction.
And as I continued to fight against my brethren, something strange began to happen. I, alongside the rest who managed to survive, began to change more and more. It was slow at first, with every brother and sister we consumed; we began to get bigger, stronger, faster and more intelligent.
That’s when I had what I think was my first thought.
“I don’t want to die”
Survival instinct is something that every living creature has in them. Even plant life isn’t excluded. But the realization that I was alive and that I acknowledged the fear of losing my life was what made me self-aware of my own existence.
This realization put me above the rest of my brethren and probably was the reason I’m still alive. But I wasn’t the only one, my brothers and sisters weren’t far behind me, as we continued to fight and grow stronger and smarter, our bodies began changing too.
Like snowflakes, no one was exactly the same anymore. Some grew incredibly strong and bulky but became slow. Some were lean and fast but lacked stamina. Some grew extremely intelligent but were extremely weak in comparation.
As for me, I never stopped to take a look at myself. Nobody did. We were too busy trying to survive long enough to enjoy our new understanding of life.
I don’t know how long the battle continued since at the time, I was just grasping the concept of the passage of time; it could’ve been days, months, or just mere hours.
After so much consumption and death, the battle came down to two of us. The last two of our entire race. This thought didn’t escape either of us. I know this because our eyes met before we launched ourselves at each other to determine who would live, and the battle stopped for a moment.
We look at each other and ourselves, nothing like our former selves and consumed brethren. We were the last two of our race, but we had no longer anything that made us similar. We were entirely different beings and only one of us would survive.
In the end, it was I who survived. The one stood above the others and now I was the only one left.
After everything was done, what was left to do?
It was then when I stood and began to use my newly acquired awareness to try and reason what happened and what did I accomplished.
At the time, the only conclusion that I arrived to was to go look for her, the one who I felt a bond with. If she was the one who changed us, she was the one who knew what I needed to do next.
But as I search for her, my hunger grew anew. Still, what I considered to be food before was still unappealing, almost disgusting; didn’t take long for me to grow desperate again for some sort of source to stave off the hunger that plagued me.
Then I set my eyes on them.
They look a lot like her; same size and form, but they were not her. I knew it because I didn’t feel the connection I felt for her.
So I did the only thing possible at the time. I consumed them all.
As I continued my search for her, all the while trying to keep myself from starving, I began noticing things.
They, unlike my brothers and sisters, didn’t try to retaliate back, they didn’t seem to be trying to consume me, and instead they were more preoccupied escaping. So I continued my consumption, unconcerned of being stopped before I could be reunited with her.
Also, as I consumed them, the changes that my body experienced kept on happening. I started to understand more of what was happening. For each of them I consumed I learned more and more.
Ideas, concepts, feelings finally had names that I understood and could comprehend and every one of them were making sense each passing second.
Now I know where I was and what they were.
I was on a place called Equestria and them were beings known as Ponies.
But no matter how much Ponies I consumed, I still wasn’t near the answers to my own questions.
Who I’m I? What am I doing here? Who was she? And why did she bestow upon me my new life?
Was she my mother? Or was she something else?
Yes, she made me what I am today. From a lowly beast she bestow upon my and brethren a gift, the gift of thought. And with my brothers and sisters now one with me, I became a superior being.
Are you proud of me, mother? Are you proud of me, GOD?
Point of divergance: Swarm of the century.
Author's Note
Ok, an explanation is in order.
No, this will not take priority over the rest of my other stories. God knows I can bearly keep up with them. This will update very irregularly.
Now about the story itself. I being toying with this idea for some time, especially during my 'break' when I didn't write for almost 2 months. Each chapter will be a different story set in an AU of FiM. This serves some purposes.
1- I can write down those pesky stories ideas that sometime float around my head which interrupts with the writting of my other stories.
2- I won't filled up the my "stories" section with a bunch of 1000 stories.
3- If a chapter is well recieved, It can become it's own story.
Now about the chapter itself: I try to experiment with 1st person perspective for a change. It can be really challenging, and though this may read a little poorly, I can saw I learned something from the experience.
Also I think I should do a second part. this time from the ponies perspective. what do you think?
